MSE News: The pound hits an eight year high buying €1.43 – here's how you get that ra 21 July 2015 at 4:02PM in Flights, currency & car hire 5 replies 1.2K views

Former_MSE_Helen

Tourist rates can be rubbish, so here are our top 10 tips to max your rate...

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The pound hits an eight year high buying €1.43 – here's how you get that rate




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NFH

If you want to compare the rate you're getting against the live market rate, see www.truefx.com. I work in wholesale foreign exchange, and this is the only free source of live streaming rates that I've found. I've compared it to tradable market rates and found it to be consistently accurate.

Note that the markets trade EUR/GBP (EUR 1 = a variable amount of GBP), not the GBP/EUR (GBP 1 = a variable amount of EUR) rates that you might see for retail purposes in the UK. Therefore the GBP/EUR level of 1.4300 that the article mentions would be seen in the markets as 0.6993.

EUR/GBP has recently plummeted below the psychologically significant level of 0.7000, although it has recently recovered a little above 0.7000. The breach of 0.7000 has removed the previous support at 0.7000, which paves the way it to go even lower.

AlexMac

This is helpful, but...

In practice, if you're just the average Joe or Judy tourist and want cash (for example, if you're going to Greece, or, if, like me, you prefer a reassuring little wad of dosh) it will depend on where you live and when you're travelling.

Martin's money maximiser tool on this website
( http://travelmoney.moneysavingexpert.com/ as mentioned in the article above )
is really ace as you can choose to collect from a bureau near you, or at the airport. And by pre-ordering you'll get a much better rate than walk-up customers.

There are lots of graphs out there which show how many Euros you get to the pound; I use http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=EUR&view=1Y as you can look at trends over the day, week, month, year or longer (if you're a nerdy travel geek like me, that is!).

This shows that even since the euro hit its recent run of lows in March (so you get more to the pound), there have been a sereis of significant ups and downs. These fluctuations, week on week, can make a tenner's difference if, say, you're buying 700 of 'em.

I tend to track the rate in the weeks prior to a holiday and, if I have time, buy just after a peak. I've have got lucky on the last two; in mid March and last week, since when the rate has got a couple of quid worse.

But overall, a bit of time spent on pre-ordering online can save you 20-25 quid (or more) on the rate you'd get if you just rocked up to your local bank, bureau or post office.

Which will buy two of you a decent meal on the Greek Islands these days!

Pincher

Every time I change money for travel, I end up regretting it.
Still have £100 worth of Norwegian Krona's annoying me, on which I paid commission to the credit card company by taking it out using an ATM.
I thought I needed it for the airport bus at least, but NO, they only take credit card on the bus!

I have about EURO400 that has been sitting around for three years. All inclusive package holidays make changing money almost redundant

Just use the credit card. I finally qualified for the SAGA card last year. I know it's not the only commission free overseas card, but I find the fact that young people are excluded amusing.

Kernow666

again misleading infomation from MSE

i have people come in on a daily basis quoting MSE saying i read on MSE blah blah blah that the rate is balh blah blah

agree totally with Alexmac

SD_Flyer

For an average street Joe wanting to get some smart exchange rates rather than rip off local travel agency rates MSE is great - unless you only want small quantities, then the delivery charge negates any benefit.